An international study of holiday shopping and religion finds that dominant religious groups are more likely to experience "consumption mass hysteria" while shoppers in minority religions may view malls and stores much differently: as central meeting places that "can play an active role in the creation of a sacred event." The study, co-authored by Temple University Fox School of Business marketing professor Ayalla Ruvio, found that holiday consumption in dominant religious settings – such as Christians in the U.S. or Jews in Israel – can lead to greater frenzy and a "social ...

New York law requires property owners to ensure the safety of people on their land or in their buildings. This duty generally requires owners to keep their property safe and well-maintained. If a hazard is unavoidable -- such as a large hole in the ground during construction -- the owner must take steps to prevent people from being harmed by the danger. At Simon Eisenberg & Baum, our Brooklyn personal injury attorneys use our experience and knowledge to successfully litigate Brooklyn premises liability claims. It does not matter how obvious the fault of the property ...

Any diver returning from ocean depths knows about the hazard of decompression sickness (DCS) or "the bends." As the diver ascends and the ocean pressure decreases, gases that were absorbed by the body during the dive, come out of solution and, if the ascent is too rapid, can cause bubbles to form in the body. DCS causes many symptoms, and its effects may vary from joint pain and rashes to paralysis and death. But how do marine mammals, whose very survival depends on regular diving, manage to avoid DCS? Do they, indeed, avoid it? In April 2010, the Woods Hole Oceanographic ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Nine out of 10 city dwellers may have enough harmful noise exposure to risk hearing loss, and most of that exposure comes from leisure activities. Historically, loud workplaces were blamed for harmful noise levels. But researchers at the University of Michigan found that noise from MP3 players and stereo use has eclipsed loud work environments, said Rick Neitzel, assistant professor in the U-M School of Public Health and the Risk Science Center. Robyn Gershon, a professor with the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Astronomers, including the University of California, Riverside's Bahram Mobasher and his graduate student Hooshang Nayyeri, have discovered that one of the most distant galaxies known is churning out stars at a shockingly high rate. The researchers made the discovery using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. The blob-shaped galaxy, called GN-108036, is the brightest galaxy found to date at such great distances. The galaxy, which was discovered and confirmed using ground-based telescopes, is 12.9 billion light-years away. Data from Spitzer ...

The Radisson Blu Hotel, Bristol, part of the rapidly-expanding Rezidor Hotel Group, has appointed Christopher Peach as the General Manager of the Radisson Blu Hotel, Bristol. Christopher brings managerial experience and a range of other hospitality-related skills to the position. Christopher has an extensive background in the hospitality industry, spanning 23 years. Having started his career in 1987 as Commis Chef aboard the Queen Elizabeth II cruise liner, he has since held various management positions at different international hotel chains in South Africa, China, ...

The Radisson Blu Schwarzer Bock Hotel, Wiesbaden is to offer a per diem rate due to a change in location of its headquarters. During the next two years the US Army Europe, the Seventh Army and the US Army Corps will move to Wiesbaden and the hotel is therefore looking forward to welcome them as guests. The per diem rate is a specific amount of money that an organization allows its employees to spend per day to cover living and travelling expenses in connection with work. It eliminates the need to create expense reports after their business trips. The introduction ...

A 14-year study by the Wildlife Conservation Society in an atoll reef lagoon in Glover's Reef, Belize has found that fishing closures there produce encouraging increases in populations of predatory fish species. However, such closures have resulted in only minimal increases in herbivorous fish, which feed on the algae that smother corals and inhibit reef recovery. The findings will help WCS researchers in their search for new solutions to the problem of restoring Caribbean reefs damaged by fishing and climate change. The study appears in an online version of Aquatic ...

Axosoft, a privately held software company located in Scottsdale, Arizona, has announced the latest release of OnTime. With the latest release of OnTime, users are able to easily switch between Agile / Scrum and traditional terminology. This allows for scrum teams and traditional users to get started quickly in OnTime. With the Agile / Scrum terminology selected, rather than referring to items as Features, OnTime will refer to items as User Stories. Other new powerful features added to this release include the ability for users to see a confirmation of their last change, ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 21, 2011 – Armed with a new ability to find retinal anomalies at the cellular level, neurobiologists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have made a discovery they hope will ultimately lead to a treatment for cancer of the retina. While much work remains, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's specialized tracing algorithm allows researchers to analyze thousands of cells instead of just a few dozen. This tool has helped reveal a previously undiscovered role of Rb, the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor gene in the developing retina. The findings are ...

Imagine if the next coat of paint you put on the outside of your home generates electricity from light—electricity that can be used to power the appliances and equipment on the inside. A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame have made a major advance toward this vision by creating an inexpensive "solar paint" that uses semiconducting nanoparticles to produce energy. "We want to do something transformative, to move beyond current silicon-based solar technology," says Prashant Kamat, John A. Zahm Professor of Science in Chemistry and Biochemistry and an ...

The Cow & Gate team of nutritionists, weaning experts and baby care advisors have produced a free 5-step weaning plan that shows mums how to wean their babies, taking them from first spoonfuls to three pureed meals a day. All mums that are in their Mum & Baby club that are approaching weaning will be sent one in the post. As the UK's leading brand in baby feeding, Cow & Gate has pooled its understanding and expertise in weaning, baby food and nutrition in this easy-to-use 5 step weaning plan. It has been designed with mums in mind, allowing them to progress ...

NEW YORK (Dec. 21, 2011) -- Responding to a need for better post-market surveillance of orthopedic devices, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established the International Consortium of Orthopaedic Registries (ICOR) in October 2010. As outlined in a Dec. 21 special online supplement in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, ICOR is in the process of developing a collaborative process for improving the safety of orthopedic devices using outcomes registries from the U.S. and other countries. The combined ICOR registries may include data on millions of orthopedic ...

Santa Claus may be getting up there, but he still has a few tricks up his fuzzy red sleeve. According to sources at his website, The Santa Claus Sleigh, Santa has installed Sleigh-Hider, the latest in sleigh-cloaking technology. Santa said he had no choice due to the increase in children using the Internet to track his every move on Christmas Eve. "I'm a sitting duck." he said, "Not so much for the tykes, but those pre-teens can be pesky." Santa Claus believes that children start out using the tracker to know when to go to bed. But he adds, "As ...

People resist medical screening, or don't call back for the results, because they don't want to know they're sick or at risk for a disease. But many illnesses, such as HIV/AIDS and cancer, have a far a better prognosis if they're caught early. How can health care providers break down that resistance? Have people think about what they value most, finds a new study by University of Florida psychologists Jennifer L. Howell and James A. Shepperd. "If you can get people to refocus their attention from a threat to their overall sense of wellbeing, they are less likely to avoid ...

Cryogenic testing is complete for the final six primary mirror segments and a secondary mirror that will fly on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. The milestone represents the successful culmination of a process that took years and broke new ground in manufacturing and testing large mirrors. "The mirror completion means we can build a large, deployable telescope for space," said Scott Willoughby, vice president and Webb program manager at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "We have proven real hardware will perform to the requirements of the mission." The Webb telescope ...

Hamilton, ON (Dec. 22, 2011) - Check-list for a healthy life: Quit smoking. Don't drink too much. Exercise regularly. Oops! You forgot something – up-to-date immunizations. Adult Canadians are not being immunized routinely for life-saving, vaccine-preventable diseases, according to Dr. Vivien Brown, an adjunct associate professor of McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine who lectures extensively to doctors and other health care professionals across Canada. The family physician said a national survey in 2006 found less than 47 per cent of adults ...

Hamilton, ON (Dec. 22, 2011) - McMaster University researchers have found consistent evidence that use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is associated with breast cancer globally. This study comes at a time when more women are again asking for this medication to control hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause. The rising trend is at odds with a U.S. Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study of 2002 which found a higher incidence of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke among women using HRT. Those findings led to a rapid decline in HRT use – and a subsequent reduction ...

In a major effort to speed up the process of officially recognizing new plant species, botanists will no longer be required to provide Latin descriptions of new species, and publication in online academic journals and books will be considered as valid as print publication. The new rules, which were approved at a nomenclature conference held in conjunction with the International Botanical Congress in July, become effective January 1, 2012. They overturn longstanding historical requirements for identifying new species of plants, algae, and fungi. "These are fundamental ...

Teens who more openly express their own viewpoints in discussions with their moms, even if their viewpoints disagree, are more likely than others to resist peer pressure to use drugs or drink. That's one of the findings of a new longitudinal study by researchers at the University of Virginia. The study appears in the journal Child Development. The researchers looked at more than 150 teens and their parents, a group that was racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse. The teens were studied at ages 13, 15, and 16 to gather information on substance use, interactions ...

Even kindergarteners know that thinking positively will make you feel better. And parents' own feelings of optimism may play a role in whether their children understand how thoughts influence emotions. Those are the findings of a new study by researchers at Jacksonville University and the University of California, Davis. The study appears in the journal Child Development. In the study, researchers looked at 90 mostly White children ages 5 to 10. The children listened to six illustrated stories in which two characters feel the same emotion after experiencing something ...

Young children whose mothers talk with them more frequently and in more detail about people's thoughts and feelings tend to be better at taking another's perspective than other children of the same age. That's what researchers from the University of Western Australia found in a new longitudinal study published in the journal Child Development. "Parents who frequently put themselves in someone else's shoes in conversations with their children make it more likely that their children will be able to do the same," according to Brad Farrant, postdoctoral fellow at the Telethon ...

"We feel very proud that we have been selected by Patriot 3 to train special response and SWAT teams on how best to use their Elevated Tactics Systems (ETS). This selection confirms SSI's hard-earned standing as a leading tactical trainer," states Sol Bradman, CEO of SSI. SSI has created a two-day program that will help teams better understand and use ETS. ETS gives teams another card in their tactical deck by enabling access to elevated conveyances such as rooftops, upper window, ships at dock, aircraft, elevated sniper positioning and much more. But using ...

Most adults can't recall events that took place before they were 3 or 4 years old—a phenomenon called childhood amnesia. While some people can remember what happened at an earlier age, the veracity of their memories is often questioned. Now a new longitudinal study has found that events experienced by children as young as 2 can be recalled after long delays. The study, by researchers at the University of Otago (in New Zealand), appears in the journal Child Development. To determine at what age our earliest memories occur, the researchers looked at about 50 children ...

School absenteeism is a significant problem, and students who are frequently absent from school more often have symptoms of psychiatric disorders. A new longitudinal study of more than 17,000 youths has found that frequently missing school is associated with a higher prevalence of mental health problems later on in adolescence, and that mental health problems during one year also predict missing additional school days in the following year for students in middle and high school. The study, published in the journal Child Development, was conducted by researchers at the ...